Host-city residents resisted a base because it damaged local identity and pride

Evidence

The official announcement of the plan for Dal Molin led to increasingly large protests against the base. A little more than a month after the city council presentation, hundreds blocked the airport’s entrance for hours. Later that summer, thousands peacefully occupied the Basilica Palladiana, one of Vicenza’s central landmarks, for twenty-four hours, talking through the night on its steps and draping NO DAL MOLIN banners and giant peace flags from the arched balconies. It was a struggle “for dignity,” one of the protesters said to me. “Not to be part of a city where soldiers live to go around the world and kill people. I don’t like this … When someone asks me, ‘Where do you live?’ I want to be proud to say, ‘I live in Vicenza: a beautiful city.’” She paused. “But now, I’m not so proud. Because [when] everybody speaks of Vicenza, of the military base—it’s not good for our image in the world.” — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 908

Categorization

• XREF: The stigma-harms-image framing echoes reputational costs of hosting foreign military presence.